It was with a certain amount of renewed vigour that Doug Naylor pulled his team back together for
Red Dwarf VIII.

Chris Barrie, who had seemingly walked away from the series, so enjoyed his brief time on VII that he
was keen to return. Norman Lovett came back to pick up the role of Holly. Director Ed Bye was on board.
The studio audience was reintroduced. And there was the promise of a Red Dwarf film.

The old magic had returned - and the entire team knew it.

One part of the crew not coming back for the eighth series was BBC Vis-FX. Amazingly, the model guys
had become too expensive even for a BBC production. Instead, model work was turned over to Jim Francis
and his team at Special FX GB, a crew who were old BBC hands from way back (Jim had worked on the
Hitchhikers Guide TV series, and model-maker Bill Pearson had worked for Mel Bibby on
Dwarf's production design). CGI and space effects, meanwhile, were created by Chris Veale - the
one-man effects house who continued to work from his bedroom.

Doug made a point of taking back control this series - originating storylines himself, and only farming
a little material out to Paul Alexander, Script Associate and the only writer from VII to return at all
for this new vision of the show. The crew were coming back from the dead. Our boys were to be placed
in prison. And there was a 'Dirty Dozen in space' idea Doug wanted to try out.

Recorded between September and November 1998 and shown from February the following year, Red Dwarf VIII
was - unbeknownst to anyone - the final series of the SF comedy to be made and broadcast at the BBC. After
52 shows the programme ended with high hopes of a movie to be made soon after - but although the following
decade saw the project at the 'almost green-lit' stage several times, to the point where storyboards were
drawn up and Robert Llewellyn had his body cast in preparation for the new Kryten costume, the big screen
adaptation did not come to fruition in the 2000s.

Instead, when the cast and crew would next reunite to make new Red Dwarf, it wouldn't be a movie,
it wouldn't be a "Series IX"... and it wouldn't be on the BBC. The show was about to enter a whole
new era...